If Tommy Chong can go to jail for sell legal pipes, then someday people will go to jail for selling legal ammunition.
Just a thought....Ooops is kind of thinking illegal?
Posted on 10/28/2003 8:58:48 AM PST by bassmaner
Comedian Tommy Chong began a nine-month federal prison sentence on October 7 for operating a glass-blowing shop that sold pipes to marijuana smokers. Prosecutors were not impressed that his Nice Dreams Enterprises marketed a morally neutral product. Chong's pipes, after all, could be used with loose-leaf tobacco, just as any stoner in an Armani suit can smoke pot in a lawful Dunhill meerschaum.
In fact, as the Los Angeles Times reported October 10, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Houghton's court pleadings sought Chong's harsh punishment because he got rich "glamorizing the illegal distribution and use of marijuana" in films that "trivialize law enforcement efforts to combat drug trafficking and use."
Chong must have wondered when such activities became criminal. Perhaps the FBI now will arrest Sean Penn for hilariously smoking grass in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Then they can handcuff Denzel Washington for portraying a crooked narcotics officer in Training Day."
At last, the homeland is secure from Chong, a 65-year-old comic whose merchandise spared potheads from fumbling with rolling papers. Could there be any greater triumph for public safety than that? And in this peaceful world and placid nation, taxpayers can rest assured that officials are using their hard-earned cash as wisely as possible. Recall that Chong and 54 others were busted in Operation Pipe Dreams, a February 24 crackdown on the drug-paraphernalia industry. That project involved 1,200 local, state, and federal authorities, the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates. These professional sleuths could have pursued al Qaeda instead, but what would that have accomplished?
All seriousness aside, as funnyman Steve Allen often said, federal drug warriors keep embarrassing themselves by enforcing pointless, oppressive policies that merely ignite tax dollars as if with a Zippo lighter. Like every White House since Nixon's, the Bush administration continues the collective, bipartisan hallucination that Uncle Sam's heavy hand can crush the desire of millions of Americans to alter their states of consciousness. Fortunately, some judges, states and cities have soured on the costly and cruel war on drugs as it grinds through its 30th futile year.
It is neither compassionate nor conservative for the Bush administration to use government force to stop cancer and AIDS sufferers, among others, from smoking marijuana to make their final days on Earth less excruciating. The U.S. Supreme Court evidently agrees. On October 14, the Supremes let stand a Ninth Circuit Court decision blocking federal efforts to yank the prescription-writing licenses of doctors who recommend medical marijuana to patients. This was a huge victory for the First Amendment, medical privacy, and the freedom of diseased Americans to ease their pain while leaving others untouched.
Seattle voters on September 16 approved Initiative 75 by 57.8 to 42.2 percent. I-75 instructs local police and prosecutors to make adult marijuana possession their lowest priority. Seattle's citizens decided to focus their limited resources on legitimate public needs, such as catching murderers, foiling rapists, and preventing terrorists from, say, toppling the landmark Space Needle.
A recent Drug Policy Alliance study found that between 1996 and 2000, voters endorsed 17 of 19 statewide ballot measures to approve medical marijuana, protect civil liberties, treat rather than imprison non-violent addicts and limit civil-asset forfeiture. From 1996 to 2002, 46 states passed some 150 such enlightened, fiscally responsible drug-law reforms.
"The war on drugs may well be the most wasteful use of government resources today," said Don Murphy, a DPA spokesman and former Republican Maryland delegate. "As a taxpayer, it's nice to know that Maryland is not alone in embracing more pragmatic approaches."
Even Drug Czar John Walters may see this issue slipping from his iron fist. While campaigning against I-75 on September 10, Seattle Weekly reported, Walters could have preached zero tolerance. Instead, he said, "The real issue is should we legalize marijuana." He added, "Let's have a debate about that."
In a September 17 letter to Walters, Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, wrote: "It's time to have that debate, so I am pleased to accept your invitation."
An honest, national debate on the war on drugs in general — and its uniquely idiotic marijuanaphobia in particular — would be a welcome development in the sad history of this national fiasco.
But the Massachusetts state legislature could, if they did away with Article XVII of the state constitution.
The 2nd Amendment has not been incorporated into the 14th, and as such, it does not restrict the states.
I felt that HG was referring to a conservative's (ie, as opposed to liberal) principles of individual rights, individual liberties. Was I wrong? Did he mean simply a conservative principle?
Well, if he did, then I read it wrong. And if he did, then I don't know how to answer it. I don't know what a conservative principle is when used that way.
Just like I don't know what the heck a "conservative view of human nature" is. What is that, cautious?
I aknowledge your argument, however, I'm not sure that I agree with it.
I'm not sure that I agree that a state, county, or municipality can legally ban guns. I know that some have done so but I'm not sure that it's legal.
I see nothing included in the 14th amendment that says the states can abridge the second.
Gets back to that metrics question. Without metrics, how can you even begin to define reasonable?
Quite frankly, I think the terms conservative and liberal are wholly reflective terms: politically, they define a stance only in relation to another stance. I used the term in my question, however, because most people on this site would identify as a "conservative" vice a "liberal," or a "republican" or "libertarian" vice a "democrat" or a "socialist," etc.Most people here, I think (I guess, I estimate) would claim the reflective point about which they use the term would be the ideology of the Revolution, the Founding Fathers. It's easy to see the differences in terms when you think of it that way: liberals are more likely to stray from conservatives, in that they are more likely to stray from the ideals of the Revolution than are conservatives. This, in any event, is how I define my conservatism: in keeping with the ideals of the Revolution.
Conservatives do not define their position based on individual rights and individual liberties, even though those exist under reasonable restrictions imposed by society. Individual rights and liberties uber alles is a position taken by libertarians, classical liberals, and objectivists.
Okay, then: how do you define your conservatism?
Even worse, you can't grow hemp for diesel fuel.
I'm all in favor of the above. You, on the other hand, prefer NO government control or interference into our personal lives.
False; I support all laws against the initiation of force or fraud.
All of which are destroyed by making individual rights and individual liberties the foundation for the way we live.
I don't believe in anarchy.
False dichotomy: "making individual rights and individual liberties the foundation for the way we live" is not identical to anarchy.
If Tommy Chong can go to jail for sell legal pipes, then someday people will go to jail for selling legal ammunition.
Just a thought....Ooops is kind of thinking illegal?
We've managed to do that for decades with the 4th amendment.
And look where it's got us.
No-knock raids on wrong living quarters
Raids based on only the word of some informant that may, or may not, have a beef with the person being raided
asset forfeiture without even a charge much less a conviction
Shall I go on?
Based on our conversation, I would say that "my" conservatism would be your classic liberalism tempered by reason and the good of society.
I understand that "reason" and "good" are a nebulous concepts, but it's the best I can do.
If you're comfortable with "reasonable" being a no-knock warrant served in the middle of the night by a bunch of Rambo-styled paramilitary police commandos with such bravado and style it literally scared a man to death . . . the basis for the warrant being, of course, the word of a pinched drug addict who'd say anything to keep his ass out of the slammer . . . the search-and-destroy warrant, of course, executed at the wrong residential address . . . I can see how you can make such a ridiculous statement.
Or how about other definitions of reasonable? Former FBI agent J. Paul Rico sending innocent men to die in prison in order to protect his sources? J. Paul Rico helping his sources---I mean his rats---murder a Tulsa businessman to keep them happy? Or how about John Connolly, aiding and abetting a notorious gangster like Whitey Bulger for years because it was "reasonable" to do so in order to dismantle the Italian Mob?
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